Just for the fun of it, hun

Calling all the amateur poets who may not even know it — fame, fortune and prizes await in Monday’s second annual St. Patrick’s Day Limerick Contest.

Last year, the competition was fierce as dozens of Victorians poured their hearts into rhyming couplets that made the judges laugh, weep and cringe. Others . . . well, let’s just say that it pays to read a limerick or two before writing one.

The rules are simple.

1) Write an original limerick.

2) Visit mondaymag.com/contest

3) Enter your limerick into the contest.

There is no entry fee; the deadline is Fri., March 1; and there will be fabulous prizes for first, second and third place.

Now here are a few tips garnered from last year’s entries. The judges liked poems that had some connection to Victoria or Island life. Humour always helps, but originality and cleverness is what made the cream rise to the top. And profanity scored low.

A limerick is simply a short, five-line poem written in the rhyming scheme of aabba, so that lines one, two, and five all rhyme with each other, and lines three and four rhyme with each other. There are some other rules about the number of metric feet per line, etc., but since this is just for fun, we won’t be too picky so as long as it doesn’t tie our tongues into knots. Last year’s winner from Byron Miller is a good example:

Only one thing transcends the euphoria

of brunch at the Waldorf Astoria;

It’s the Major and me

taking Afternoon Tea

at the Empress Hotel in Victoria

The top poems will also be published in the March 14 issue of Monday. So get your thinking caps on and your sharpen your wit. We await your noble efforts. M

Song stuck in my head

OK, I’m a sucker for ’80s punk. What can I say; it was my era. The Clash, Joe Jackson, Billy Bragg, The Ramones, The Dead Kennedys, The Monks … every time I hear one of their songs, I can’t help but smile. So when New Orleans’ music sensation, Amanda Shaw and The Cute Guys released a fiddle-heavy cover of The Clash’s “Should I Stay Or Should I Go,” I was all over it. You can hear it for free at: http://goo.gl/Hcl3j